After the first shock of the announcement, she reflected as deeply as her nature permitted, prayed, wept in secret—­and made up her mind.  Duty, she felt clearly, pointed to renouncement.  The discipline would certainly be severe—­she did not dream at the moment how severe!—­but this fine, consistent little Christian saw it plain; she accepted it, too, without any sighing of the martyr, though the courage she showed was of the martyr order.  Her husband should never know the cost.  In all but this one passion his unselfishness was ever as great as her own.  The love she had borne him all these years, like the love she bore her anthropomorphic deity, was deep and real.  She loved to suffer for them both.  Besides, the way her husband had put it to her was singular.  It did not take the form of a mere selfish predilection.  Something higher than two wills in conflict seeking compromise was in it from the beginning.

“I feel, Sophia, it would be really more than I could manage,” he said slowly, gazing into the fire over the tops of his stretched-out muddy boots.  “My duty and my happiness lie here with the Forest and with you.  My life is deeply rooted in this place.  Something I can’t define connects my inner being with these trees, and separation would make me ill—­might even kill me.  My hold on life would weaken; here is my source of supply.  I cannot explain it better than that.”  He looked up steadily into her face across the table so that she saw the gravity of his expression and the shining of his steady eyes.

“David, you feel it as strongly as that!” she said, forgetting the tea things altogether.

“Yes,” he replied, “I do.  And it’s not of the body only, I feel it in my soul.”

The reality of what he hinted at crept into that shadow-covered room like an actual Presence and stood beside them.  It came not by the windows or the door, but it filled the entire space between the walls and ceiling.  It took the heat from the fire before her face.  She felt suddenly cold, confused a little, frightened.  She almost felt the rush of foliage in the wind.  It stood between them.

“There are things—­some things,” she faltered, “we are not intended to know, I think.”  The words expressed her general attitude to life, not alone to this particular incident.

And after a pause of several minutes, disregarding the criticism as though he had not heard it—­“I cannot explain it better than that, you see,” his grave voice answered.  “There is this deep, tremendous link,—­some secret power they emanate that keeps me well and happy and—­alive.  If you cannot understand, I feel at least you may be able to—­forgive.”  His tone grew tender, gentle, soft.  “My selfishness, I know, must seem quite unforgivable.  I cannot help it somehow; these trees, this ancient Forest, both seem knitted into all that makes me live, and if I go—­”

There was a little sound of collapse in his voice.  He stopped abruptly, and sank back in his chair.  And, at that, a distinct lump came up into her throat which she had great difficulty in managing while she went over and put her arms about him.